The aim of this strand of the journal is to introduce and analyse texts - whether oral, manuscript or print - produced by authors outside the literary or academic mainstream such as clerks, schoolteachers, traders and clergy. Such texts might include notebooks, diaries, letters, local works of history, philosophy or literature, performed or written poetry, newspaper serials and a host of other forms.

This rich seam of intellectual work is increasingly becoming a focus of attention by historians, anthropologists and literary scholars. Texts such as these constitute a rich archive of local thought and experience, experiment and commentary. They shed a fascinating light on life 'on the ground' in Africa, past and present. But the texts themselves are rarely accessible outside the local context of their production. As the series develops, the journal will be building up a repository of online texts to which scholars and researchers can return over the years.

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